Barack Obama wrote in "Dreams From My Father" of his days as a student at Occidental College, groping for his political identity: "We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Frantz Fanon, Eurocentrism and patriarchy." That’s one of the passages from his autobiography that has fueled conspiracy theories among right-wing bloggers. They speak of Obama as if he’s a tool of Third World revolutionaries who have somehow been preserved in dry ice since the 1960s. But that’s silly. A man who plans to retain Bob Gates as secretary of defense and install a retired Marine four-star general as his national security adviser is not a creature of adolescent rebellion.
But here’s a contrarian thought: Before Obama assumes the burdens of commander in chief, maybe he should dust off that copy of Fanon’s "The Wretched of the Earth" and give the radical theorist another look. In doing so, he would remind himself of the special opportunity he will have as president to speak to a world that still suffers from the anti-Western fury that Fanon described in 1961.
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What made Fanon a guru for the left was his focus on the anger and alienation of the formerly colonized people of Africa. Born in the French colony of Martinique, he studied psychiatry in France and practiced in Algeria during that country’s bloody revolt against French colonialism. Much of "The Wretched of the Earth" is empty vitriol extolling violence as a path to liberation, but Fanon includes case studies of patients he treated in Algeria — including victims who were tortured by the French army. "For many years to come, we shall be bandaging the countless and sometimes indelible wounds inflicted on our people by the colonialist onslaught," Fanon wrote.
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This is Obama’s challenge: Can he show this angry world a different American face? Can he connect with what Carter administration national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski has called the "global political awakening" — and make the United States an ally of this movement for change, rather than its enemy? That’s his biggest opportunity as president. Obama’s strong national security team shows that he’s more a man of the center than many had imagined. These people understand the uses of military force. But to speak convincingly to a world that is wary of American power, Obama should remember his liberal roots, too. He will be a more persuasive advocate for change if he recalls that young man in the leather jacket spouting off about Fanon. The challenge of the 21st century is to end the post-colonial age at last and to heal its psychic and political wounds. Obama is uniquely the man who can do it, if he keeps faith with his own story…
A national culture under colonial domination is a contested culture whose destruction is sought in systematic fashion. It very quickly becomes a culture condemned to secrecy. This idea of clandestine culture is immediately seen in the reactions of the occupying power which interprets attachment to traditions as faithfulness to the spirit of the nation and as a refusal to submit. This persistence in following forms of culture which are already condemned to extinction is already a demonstration of nationality; but it is a demonstration which is a throw-back to the laws of inertia. There is no taking of the offensive and no redefining of relationships. There is simply a concentration on a hard core of culture which is becoming more and more shrivelled up, inert and empty…
While I didn’t have the leather jacket, I sure had a copy of Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth. I recall thinking when I read it how hard being "American" was. We were not a Colonial Country, at least not anymore, yet the problems Fanon discussed were very much with us. Ours is a fabricated Colonialism – oddly classed, based on business success and skin color. Unlike South America where Spaniard, Native American, and African races seemed to blend to form a new breed, we had maintained a European/African split and either consumed or isolated the Native Americans [now it has become a European/African/Hispanic/Asian split]. But it’s all so made up because there is no indigenous race, indigenous culture, indigenous language. We are all Colonists or descendants of Colonists – voluntary or involuntary.
And so we’ve created our own mythology, like the idea that Obama is Black. Obama is no more Black or African than I am Italian [since my father came from Italy]. He’s not our First Black President. He’s our 44th American President, just another mongrel like most of the rest of us. And, by the way, Rod Blagojevith is not Illinois’ Serbian Governor either. He’s just another crooked American guy in Chicago politics.
I applaud Ignatius’ point – Obama shouldn’t forget Franz Fanon or the Third World revolutionaries for a minute, or forget those smoke filled rooms of his college days when he pondered the wretched of the earth. America is at least a place where we aspire to transcend the Eurocentric motif . We actually wrested ourselves from Colonial rule as "Second World" revolutionaries [Colonists discarding the yoke of Colonialism].
Actually, culture should be a verb, not a noun – something always in motion. For eight years, we’ve had a static oligarchy that has been, in many respects, "Colonial." Now that we’re about to get back on the move, we have an opportunity for our diversity to find a new relationship with our unity. There was a particularly aggregious film clip of George W. Bush at a black tie fundraiser giving a speech. He said to his wealthy white audience, "some may call you elite, but I call you my base." Well the people he was talking to were "simply a concentration o[f] a hard core of culture which is becoming more and more shrivelled up, inert and empty." We have the possibility of putting a closing parenthesis on the regression that opened with Nixon and has persisted for forty years, even during the Clinton hiatus.
Frank Rich is magnicent in his latest op-ed. Reading it felt so good. He talks about the big fish who have caused so much grief retiring to their McMansions.